


The Little Indulgences

by Nny



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-06
Updated: 2011-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:47:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Matthew suspects he might be some sort of criminal, but you get all sorts in London - or, you used to. Now it's just the occasional gentleman for a hair cut and shave, and young Mr Fell, who's been young Mr Fell for far longer than he should have been. It's all one to him even if he </i>is<i> a criminal; there's many'd do well to learn from his manners, and he never skimps on a tip.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little Indulgences

"Good afternoon, Mr Fell."

"Good afternoon, Matthew. How are you today?"

('Matthew' is seventy eight if he's a day and Mr Brightman to everyone for the past twenty eight years at least, except for a distant third cousin in Australia who writes every now and again and addresses him by his father's name, without fail. He's not entirely sure if anyone except Mr. Fell _knows_ his first name - except the tax man, of course. Can't escape the tax man. Sure, he always says, as death and taxes; Mr Fell always chuckles and tells him only _one_ of those is as sure as it should be.

Matthew suspects he might be some sort of criminal, but you get all sorts in London - or, you used to. Now it's just the occasional gentleman for a hair cut and shave, and young Mr Fell, who's been young Mr Fell for far longer than he should have been. It's all one to him even if he _is_ a criminal; there's many'd do well to learn from his manners, and he never skimps on a tip.)

"Getting by very nicely, thank you kindly. In for the usual, are we?"

"We are indeed. I've got a busy week ahead of me, you know."

 _This evening, Aziraphale will be mostly unloading books from the cardboard boxes he's had under the stairs for longer than he cares to count. He spotted a barely-broken bookcase negligently shoved into a skip, and will persuade a very nice young man called Frederick to help him carry it home; Frederick had been having something of a crisis of faith, but will be feeling rather better about it now. Aziraphale'll attempt to nap at around 1, but he's never slept dreadfully well and the bookcase will be full before morning. He will discover that it isn't half so nice as it looked, and really does splinter dreadfully._

"I'll just adjust - hop up there, Mr Fell, make yourself comfortable. Things busy in books just now, are they?"

"Oh, I get by, I get by very well. There's enough money in books to keep me in tea, and that's quite enough for me."

"Doesn't sound like you eat enough to keep a bird alive."

(There's the gentle rasp of a nail-file.)

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?"

"Well I'm thankful you choose to wear more than the lillies in the field if you'll excuse me saying so, Mr. Fell."

"I don't think I'd last terribly long were I to be put away for public indecency, do you?"

(Matthew privately agrees. Very nice hands, he's got, and he's never seemed quite - well. In the business he's in, it don't pay to judge these things.)

"Shouldn't like to say. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so they say, so I shouldn't place bets until I knew how you could handle yourself."

 _On Tuesday, the angel will go to jail. He visits a different one every week, for which he has a pale blue shirt and a white collar put aside; it's rare they get anyone other than the chaplain wanting to pray with them, and it's not always accepted so well as it might be. This week it'll go smoothly enough, for which he'll be duly grateful._

 _But he knows. How to handle himself._

"Well I appreciate the show of faith. It's a rare thing, these days."

"Oh, now, you shouldn't be so cynical." (He almost adds 'at your age', but he's never been entirely sure.) "Why, just the other day I wandered off from the vegetable shop without my wallet, and I'll be blowed if the fella didn't chase me half way home to give it back."

(Gentle splashing fills the momentary silence.)

"Well I _am_ glad to hear that. It's little things like that which make the headlines all the more bearable, you know."

 _Wednesday is best not spoken about._

 _He'll have the devil of a job getting his hands clean._

"I don't read the papers. Either they're scaremongering or the world is getting steadily worse, and I can't say as I care to hear it, either way."

"...no. No, I do know what you mean."

(Busy silence, for a little while.)

"Going anywhere nice on your holidays, this year?"

"Oh, no. I shouldn't imagine so. I'm being kept dreadfully busy, what with one thing and another, and I shouldn't like to neglect my duties."

( _Duties_ , Matthew thinks, with a moment of sympathy. He's walked past the poor chap's shop every week for the past few years and he's yet to see a customer in there.)

"That's an admirable attitude there, Mr. Fell. Good on you."

"One does one's best."

 _Thursday... Thursday he'll lose. Not to Crowley, because Crowley would never dream of - not to Crowley. One of the others. And he won't even - there's a point at which it's too late, even for angels, and even if the poor boy_ wants _to repent he won't have the voice for it. Aziraphale always worries about those ones._

 _He prays for them, of course, but he's never been entirely sure whether an angel's prayers are heard._

"You'll be doing something at the weekend, then? Take a little time off?"

"Oh. Yes. There's an exhibition I've been wanting to see, and a particular friend I'd rather like to take to dinner afterwards, if he doesn't object too strenuously."

(Particular friend, thinks Matthew. Oh- _ho_.)

"Well it's important to get some rest after a busy week, I always say."

 _Friday he'll still be in the police station. He has to deal with the fall-out of the previous day, of course, because that's all a part of being an angel. The ink they will use to take his fingerprints won't be very easy to wash off, and he'll catch people staring at him all the way home. It's easy enough to miracle it away, but he really oughtn't, just for him._

 _Besides,_ he'll _still know that it's been there._

(A moment is taken to admire the elegantly manicured nails.)

"It's the little indulgences that make life what it is. Thank you, Matthew."


End file.
